Not Like This
by Ithilwen K-Bane
Summary: Agent Washington wouldn't exactly regret the words that came into his head the first time he saw Tucker standing there in the snow, but they were certainly going to come back to him: "Thank God. One of them's normal."


_Red vs Blue_ and its characters are the creation of the crew at Rooster Teeth. It is itself inspired by _Halo_, owned by Bungie and Microsoft.

Spoilers through RvB8.

This was inspired by two prompts. Details below

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Agent Washington wouldn't exactly regret the words that came into his head the first time he saw Tucker standing there in the snow, but they were certainly going to come back to him.

The Counselor's files on the Blood Gulch simulation troopers had been heavily redacted, but the personnel descriptions had been left alone, and how many five-foot-five teal green sim troopers with personalized Sangheli ion gas blades could there be?

"Caboose, Tucker, get in the base. See if you can find some tools."

"Be right back." And _that was it_.

_Thank God,_ he'd thought as Tucker disappeared through the blast doors, Caboose on his heels. _One of them's normal._

Normal was all he could handle. He had one goal left, _one_. Open the capture unit and Epsilon comes quietly. Then hand him over, disappear somewhere that isn't supermax and forget you ever heard the word Freelancer. But Epsilon was staring at the capture unit, and it was staring back, lone LED flickering in the cold air, as thin as a dying man's pulse, and Epsilon looked like he was about to do something _very_ stupid. He couldn't lose now, not like this.

It was funny how a guy could join the military with a pile of gleaming hopes and then follow them all the way down until he was flat on his belly in the snow, looking what he was still allowed to want in the eye.

_We're going to win the war._ Gone. That one fell away, buried under sim missions and dead guys who weren't really Innies and the sound of the Director's voice.

_I'm going to get well._ Forget it. The dead spots in your sensory system and the way you can't tell the past from the present and the two times you maybe had a seizure but can't report it? That's you now, Agent. Fill the cracks in your mind with anger; it's all the glue you get.

_I'm going to make them pay_. Who, you? Eight counts of conspiracy to commit treason say you're going to be walled up alive in the worst place you've ever been and they'll forget about you long before you die.

A human being could kill for what he wanted. Get on his screaming legs and re-learn how to walk. Stay quiet and bide his time. Detonate the bodies. Shoot South in the face. Sign out what was left of Maine as equipment.

Beg.

"I need you, Epsilon. You're my only ticket out of this mess. If you get stuck in there, they'll never believe me."

_I'm not going back to prison_.

The climate controls in his suit had started to jam back in the desert. They'd ground down slow, and he'd registered it, but the subzero air started to scald Wash's lungs as the Meta picked itself up out of the snow.

_I'm not going back to prison._

Defend Epsilon. Remember every knife trick Connie ever taught you. Forget that Connie's gone. Remember not to hit the capture unit. Forget that Maine's still Maine in the way he _moves_. Don't think about Maine. Don't let your knees buckle. Don't go back to prison. Don't have a memory flash:

_"We would like to offer you some under-utilized military hardware."_

_"Good,"_ he'd said as he rounded the corner._ "Before I leave, I'd like to build a—"_

__At first he thought the Chairman meant the armor. Then the head turned, gold and deadly as it got to its feet, letting out a growl that seemed to shoot down the tracks that Epsilon and then Alpha had cut into his brain, some organic residue of Sigma switching on disjointed scraps of meaning—_mission_ and _orders_—with vacuum-black gaps where the light of the burning man should have been.

_"—can understand him? Excellent. But then you've worked with him before, haven't you?"_ The Chairman had started talking while he'd been distracted. Long minutes passed before Washington even remembered he was there.

_"Yes, sir."_

Crash back into the present and see Epsilon go down. Keep the Meta too busy to get the capture unit near him. Duck the haymaker to your temple. Remind yourself that he's not Maine. Come up swinging with the butt of the battle rifle.

Hold out. Forget the cold sucking energy out of your lungs with each breath. Forget that North and Carolina and Four-seven-niner aren't right behind you. Ignore the bones he just broke. Forget that no one's coming.

Don't hear the blast doors open.

"Attack!" ...Sarge?

"Get him!" ...the reds?

"We're gonna fucking die!" But it wasn't their mission.

Look over your shoulder.

No, that was a mistake.

Washington rolled airborne as Meta landed a kick to his solar plexus hard enough to make time jump back to normal.

_I'm not going back to prison._

He fell down on one knee, stabbing his palm into the ice. At first, he thought he was trying to get up again. At first, he actually was.

_I'm not going back to prison._

Wash's vision was starting to go dim as the sounds of the flight blurred together. A light flared ice-blue against the snow. Sarge asked him something, but he didn't remember. He was done.

_I'm not going..._

Feel your arm give out.

_I'm not..._

Welcome the cold.

Don't go back to prison.

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The end isn't dark. Death is white. Death is blinding with a thousand tiny razor spikes that want to cut you out of your body. Things have been dark for you before, haven't they, David?

_"I didn't want you to run an intelligence report on him. I wanted a medical one."_

How could Dufresne be the same person from Blood Gulch? According to the Counselor's files, he'd been the sole medical officer on site when Private Tucker had been treated for a deadly parasitic infection. Both the sim trooper _and_ the alien larva survived, in the latter case long enough to become some kind of team mascot.

Sigma's plan had been to become human. Now even strangers saw Meta as a machine.

_"It's just an empty shell."_

_"But I don't want it to be."_

It didn't have to be. After all, once they took Epsilon out of _you_, you _came back_, rising up through those strange memories like you a plant growing up out of the snow. When the burning man was gone, could a human brain send new shoots up through the ash? Maine or not, was _something_ coming back?

You've learned not to hope for things, even when they're right in front of you, but...

Maybe he just needs someone to tell him what to do. That's like looking out for him, right?

_"Get on the ship and come with me to Valhalla."_

No answer, just a funny turn of his head, like he was thinking.

_"Meta, search the camp."_

A grumble, but you can understand him. They almost sound like snide comments.

_"Look for a heat signature."_

Well not _comments_ but you knew what he _meant_, the way you always used to know. But that was in the desert, when the world was hot. The ice made it all fall away: _He_ was manipulating _you_ the whole time. And it wasn't because of what Sigma had deleted. It was because of what he kept, Maine's unstoppable drive to be the best. The ambition wouldn't have touched that, not one neuron.

_"Help me get him inside."_

_"Okay."_

Maybe if you'd had time. Maybe if you hadn't been jumping up at Epsilon just out of reach you might have thought of a way to help him. But it was bone deep. The Project. The mission. Nothing comes before the mission, not even your team, and Epsilon was the mission. You couldn't help Maine. You couldn't even figure out what he wanted.

_"I want to pick him up."_

_"Don't pick him up."_

_"I think I should pick him up like a bunny."_

_"Don't pick him up."_

_"But if we don't pick him up, the space police might see the drag marks, and then they might figure out we switched the armors."_

The world was quiet.

_"Watch his head."_

_"Yay!"_

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He hadn't resisted arrest. Why? He'd thought it would only be until Caboose and the Reds turned Epsilon over to the authorities. He'd remained calm. Until they'd tried to remove his armor during his intake search. It had been so long that it felt like his skin. Even the judge said cruel and unusual to make a brain-damaged vet live in prison togs. Just hobble the power core. Just install magnetic shackles. Just take his weapons and leave him with nothing to stop the phantom pain where parts of his mind used to be. He'll behave, but it would be like dismantling his bones. Don't—

"No..." Wash tried to push him away but he only managed to make his hand twitch.

"Hold still, you idiot. Simmons said the cops'll be here in like a minute."

"I'm not going back..." to prison.

"Well tough shit. You think _I_ wanna go back? Caboose, get his helmet."

"Okay."

Wash blinked to clear his eyes, squinting hard before he realized why the air was so cold. Private Caboose was holding his severed head. No, he was—

Another set of footfalls came in. Wash tensed, finally getting enough of his nervous system under control to actually move deliberately. The red sergeant, the one whose name had been redacted, was squatting down on one knee, head tipped the side, "Did a number on you, didn't he, Agent Washington?"

"Come on, get up," muttered Tucker. "Of course some of us can get up higher than others, _bow chicka bow wow!_ Help me with the chest plate."

Wash blinked at him, still dazed.

"_Chest plate_," Tucker repeated slowly, holding up a pale blue slab of metal and electronics. "It goes over the part you stare at on a chick." He turned toward Sarge. "I think he's broken."

"Don't look at me, Blue. I got m'own idiots."

As if on cue, there was a crashing sound from somewhere else in the base.

"_Grii-iiff!_"

"I just wanted a snack!"

"How did you get _both_ arms stuck in two different vending machines?!"

"Funny story, Simmons. I heard that if you reach under like this you can clean out the bottom row of the without paying, but then the droppy part closed in and now my arm is stuck."

"Why don't you just _let go of the sodas_, you big idiot?"

"_I've had a rough day and I deserve cheesy cocoa fizz!_"

Wash pulled himself back to the present. "The Meta," he said. "Where is he now?" Had he made off with Epsilon?

"Ooooooh-kay," muttered Private Tucker. "Short short version? Meta's at the bottom of the cliff, Church's stuck in that memory gizmo with his body is at the top of the cliff, and we can do the long version after you finish putting on his armor and pretend to be him. It's not a great plan, but all the people who still have asses get to keep them covered."

"What? His body?" Wash blinked. So Epsilon was gone.

"Look, if you want a diabolical master plan with contincengies and secret alien tunnels, you should probably stick with Project Freelancer. 'Switch the thing with the other thing' is about as advanced as we get," said Tucker. Caboose nodded affirmatively.

"Also, 'try to win.'"

"I liked 'do better than you are currently doing.' It was neat to see Vic try to be all motivating and shit."

Suddenly there was a leg guard under his nose. Wash tried to remember what else the Counselor's file said about PFC Tucker. Something about impudent comments.

"It's actually okay that it doesn't fit perfectly," he told Private Tucker.

"That's what she said."

"That's ...huh?" Well maybe that cleared that up.

Washington focused on the fastenings. He tried not to think. He was still alive, and that was ...good? He exhaled, trying not to freak out at the presence of two other human beings this close to him. Private Tucker might have been a sim trooper, but he knew his way around a mark VI. Wash wondered for a moment if Caboose needed help getting in and out of his armor.

What must that be like? All those years of playing soldier without a mission? What did you _think_ about all day?

"Caboose, you okay with remembering the plan?"

"Yes."

"When the cops show up, what do we do?"

"Eat ice cream?"

Tucker was silent.

"I am not okay with remembering the plan," said Caboose.

"I..." Washington trailed off. "What is the plan?"

Tucker turned to Washington, "All _you_ have to do is act normal and say 'Here' when anyone says 'Hello there, Private Church.' When we get back to Blood Gulch, _then_ you can go crazy. We can do crazy."

There was another shout from deeper in the base: "OW!"

"I said leggo those illicit beverages, Private!" shouted Sarge.

"OW! OW! SPOILS OF WAR! I CLAIM SPOILS OF WAR."

"We can do _all_ kinds of crazy," Tucker continued, "but if you can't be normal for the cops, then—"

"I can..." Wash trailed off. He looked at Epsilon's armor. Something was coming back. "I can do this." Something good.

They headed toward the exit just as the whine of ion engines began overhead.

"Hey Tucker?" asked Caboose

"What?"

"_Can we keep him?_"

Tucker rounded on the other sim soldier. "For the fifth time," he snapped, "_yes_, Caboose!"

"_Yay!_"

Wash felt something inside him go very still. Maybe, when you didn't have the mission, what you had instead was...

_I'm ...going to be on a team again._

"Tell me it wasn't like this in Project Freelancer," muttered Tucker.

"No," Wash answered. "No not like this."

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Prompt #1:

**We never actually see Tucker and Wash meet in canon - when the boys are all together at the end of season 8 to fight the Meta, Wash just knows who Tucker is, presumably from talking to the others. But we never see their proper introduction. Can we see that?**—Terraphim86

And is this ever hard to write. It sounds easy, but in canon, all of Washington's emotional energy is directed toward Epsilon. With a little stretching, we can add Maine or Meta. But no, he doesn't actually stop and react to seeing Tucker for the first time.

Prompt #2:

_Concept: Grif gets his arms stuck in two vending machines at once, a la Homer Simpson._—(paraphrased) NotTragedi.

Too good to resist.

drf24 at columbia dot edu


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